The Interpreted Rock

Guest Blogger Jennifer C. Jones New Hope. New Help. No Secrets.   Oxbow Academy offers all of that to families seeking treatment for teens with sexual dependencies. Oxbow Academy is an internationally known residential treatment center that focuses exclusively on treating teen boys struggling with Problematic Sexual behavior (PSB).   The facility opened in late January, 2006 and serves boys ranging in age from 10 to 17 whose parents seek out Oxbow from across the globe.    Located on two separate campuses, one in Mt Pleasant Utah and the other in rural Wales, Utah, Oxbow combines intensive therapy with academic course work. It offers a boarding school setting that is focused on early intervention. Oxbow’s highly specialized environment is designed exclusively for teens with sexual dependency issues. Oxbow Academy  students are surrounded by peers who are also struggling with similar problems. This provides a supportive, understanding culture. M...

This is an interview of Stephen C. Schultz that appeared in the UK Publication; Actionetwork 1. What kind of feedback did you have from foreign families after Brat Camp was shown? Have you been inundated with requests by parents to use your service? Answer: The response was quite positive. We admitted students from England, Israel, Germany, Austria, Scotland, Ireland, and Australia to name a few. For six months after the program aired, we averaged about 5% of our total population was foreign. From January of this year to now, 15% of the student assessment tests on our Website are from foreign families. To this day, we are averaging 1-2 foreign students per month and this with out active marketing efforts outside the US. At this time it’s simply word of mouth referrals. 2. What are the most common reasons for admittance amongst foreign and US students? Answer : Depression, ADHD, Underachievement in school, drugs & alcohol and all the mal-adaptive behavi...

By Stephen C. Schultz A warm tropical breeze ruffled my hair as if a hand were lightly stroking my head. In the darkness there was a heavy, musty smell of sea and sand. I was in a strange place, without bearing or sense of direction. I sat up in bed, my head throbbing. Shadows of palm trees danced across the wall. Was this a dream? There was the faint sound of another person in the room…inhaling, exhaling…inhaling, exhaling. The large numbers on a clock glowed a bright 3:14am. I stood and walked out the door to the hallway. It was all coming back to me now. I was in Hawaii. I had not adjusted to the time difference and was wide-awake ready to take on the day. I proceeded down the hall to the bathroom, turned on the light, and there it was. The source of the pain in my head, right at my hairline was a big white bandage with faded blood seeping through the center. I leaned forward, looking at myself in the mirror. My mind drifted to another place in time.

 By Stephen C. Schultz (Caution: This post contains graphic and frank discussion of suicide and the implications it has on others. If you or someone you know is having thoughts of suicide, please contact the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255) The morning sun was glistening through the window as it peeked over the snow tipped mountains. The left side of my face was warm and I could feel my heartbeat in my cheek. Sage brush and fence posts pulsed by in a rhythmic blur. The consistent whine of tires on the freeway surface was sporadically broken by the “thump/thump” of tarred cracks in the road. On any given day this would be my favorite time. Mornings bring with them not only the beauty of a new dawn, but the hope for a better day than yesterday. However, I already knew how this day was going to turn out. This day was going to be filled with sadness and tears. There would be questions of “why” and thoughtful efforts to make sense of it all even though...

By Stephen C. Schultz "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana (1863–1952), U.S. philosopher, poet Remember the days of “Drive By Child Birth”? In 1995 hospitals were adjusting to the downward pressure of the insurance industries cost cutting and managed care. Some HMO healthcare plans routinely discharged a mother prior to 24 hours so it could be billed as an outpatient procedure. Only after continued mother/baby complications at home, law suites and government legislation did the standard post partum stay remain at two days. Within the psych industry, we experienced the psych hospital collapse of the late 80’s & early 90’s; Charter Medical, Community Psychiatric Centers , Brown Schools and others all faced financial downturns. Some families found themselves with students admitted to programs that were literally closing down operations with students still enrolled. Managed care was certainly instrumental in facil...

By Stephen C. Schultz Tears welled up in my eyes as I moved my head back and forth in a Stevie Wonder like motion. The wind was whipping the smoke from the fire directly at me and no matter where I moved it seemed to follow. The age old saying, “Smoke follows beauty…and beauty was a horse” didn’t seem to be quite so humorous when I was the one in the smoke! The sun was setting and the wind seemed to subside a bit. I stared at the fire in a trance like state, watching as the flames snapped and nipped at invisible structures in the air. Sparks surfed skyward on heated currents, then disappeared in the blink of an eye. Shadows danced amongst the pines and junipers that surrounded the camp. There is something peaceful about a campfire; the warmth, the light, a sense of safety, the comfort of survival. My mind drifted to earlier that same evening. Troy (Name has been changed), a 17 yr old from Michigan, was in charge of building the fire that evening for the group. He proceeded t...

Guest Blogger Jennifer C. Jones Sean hears her footsteps on the stairs and quickly snaps the desk light off. He clicks back to World of Warcraft. It’s 2a.m.   He has exams tomorrow. Maybe she’ll think he’s studying. If not, he's been in trouble before for gaming...that's nothing new.   Just a few more minutes, then he’ll stop. “Sean” is one of millions of teenagers who use the Internet daily to find and view pornography . The Washington Post reports more than 11-million teens regularly view pornography on line.   That may not be surprising when Nielson Media Research reports 75% of   U.S. population over age two lives in homes with web access. The London School of Economics says nine out of 10 children between the ages of eight and 16 have viewed porn on the Internet. Most of the time it was accidental - often while a child was doing homework. But could there be a connection between Internet porn and behaviors that can encourage sexual de...